When Sabrina Duiella walked away from an eight-year career at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, one of the world's most prestigious law firms, she was not running from something. She was running toward a vision she could not shake: building a law practice entirely her own.

Today, that vision has materialized into the Italian Citizenship Law Firm, a transatlantic operation with offices stretching from Rome to New York to Chicago. In just under two years, Duiella has grown her caseload from a handful of clients to more than 250 cases annually. Her success rate? One hundred percent. She has never lost a case.

"It's been very demanding as a process, as you can imagine," Duiella says. "From hiring people to meeting clients and coordinating the work among all the offices has been very demanding, but at the same time very rewarding in terms of profitability and in terms of satisfaction."

Sabrina Duiella's Path from Rome to NYU Law School

Duiella's legal career began in Rome, where she graduated as a legal professional and became a licensed attorney. She joined Freshfields and spent more than eight years in their litigation department, earning secondments in Paris and Moscow that expanded her international perspective.

But the pull of new challenges proved irresistible. She applied to New York University School of Law with a scholarship and made a decision that many established attorneys would consider unthinkable: she quit her position at Freshfields to pursue an LLM in the United States.

"I thought about starting my law firm after returning to Italy in December 2023," she explains. By early 2024, she had incorporated her company. The Italian Citizenship Law Firm was born.

Italian Citizenship Law Firm: A Growing Transatlantic Practice

What began as a solo venture has expanded into a multi-office operation. The firm maintains locations in Flushing, New York; Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, near Boston; Park Ridge, near Chicago; and Rome, where Duiella is currently based.

The geographic spread is intentional. "We assist Italian American people nationwide," she explains. "We have partners in more than one location in order to assist them better."

Duiella has also maintained strategic partnerships with other firms, including Bardazzi Law, where she continues to practice U.S. immigration law, and CILC, a firm focused on antitrust and intellectual property matters. Her New York bar qualification, obtained in 2023, enables her to practice across multiple legal domains.

How Sabrina Duiella Helps Americans Obtain Italian Citizenship by Descent

The core of Duiella's practice centers on Italian citizenship by descent, known legally as jus sanguinis proceedings. If an American has an Italian-born parent or grandparent, they may be eligible for Italian citizenship. The challenge lies in navigating the process.

The traditional route through Italian consulates has become notoriously slow. "This kind of procedure is really long," Duiella explains. "It's taking more than 10, 12 years to complete. And many times it doesn't really end up with a successful outcome because of procedural hurdles."

Her firm offers an alternative: pursuing recognition through Italian courts. "Instead of waiting for 10 years, 12 years, our applicants wait for one year, sometimes one year and a half, two years, and they are recognized to be Italian citizens."

The process involves guiding clients through document collection, gathering Italian birth certificates and other vital records, filing petitions with Italian courts, and representing clients at hearings. The firm handles Italian municipal records directly while clients collect their U.S. documentation.

"We never lost a single case till now," Duiella says of the cases that have reached the decision phase. "That's really extremely rewarding for us and satisfying for our clients."

The Reverse Migration: Why Americans Are Seeking Italian Citizenship Now

Duiella has witnessed a striking historical reversal in migration patterns. At the turn of the 20th century, waves of Italians left poverty in southern Italy, particularly Naples and Sicily, seeking opportunity in American factories and mines. Today, their descendants are looking to return.

"Many people going through this process are either scared about how the politics is unfolding for the country and so they want to go back to Italy," Duiella observes. "Some of them are considering retiring in Italy. So they are preparing and organizing everything in order for them and for their children to have a possibility, a new opportunity in Italy or in Europe."

The appeal extends beyond Italy itself. Italian citizenship confers European Union citizenship, opening doors across 27 countries. "With Italian citizenship, you become a European citizen and so you can live, work, travel everywhere, not only in Italy, but in all the 27 European countries."

The motivations vary. Some clients are planning for retirement. Others want their children to have educational opportunities in Europe. Some are seeking what Duiella describes as a hedge against political uncertainty in America.

"You don't expect that until you hear applicants trying to at least have the possibility of going to Italy sometime in their life," she reflects. "Not necessarily now, but sometime, maybe in the future, maybe when they retire. It's a very interesting phenomenon."

Sabrina Duiella on Artificial Intelligence in Immigration Law

As her practice has scaled, Duiella has thought carefully about how artificial intelligence might reshape immigration law workflows. She sees both immediate applications and future possibilities.

Currently, her firm conducts free 15-minute consultations with every prospective client, explaining the process and requirements. "With AI developing more and more in the future, I would say that this step, this phase can be taken over by the artificial intelligence that would be trained by us," she says.

The repetitive nature of initial consultations makes them a natural candidate for automation. "It's something very important and we look forward to having the possibility of using it in a comfortable way for our clients."

She also envisions AI transforming the drafting process. "We have attorneys drafting the petitions for citizenship which are similar to each other. We could potentially see that in the future those petitions would be drafted by artificial intelligence without having attorneys drafting them by hand over and over."

Her firm already uses AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT for research and for adapting petitions across similar cases. "There are parts of the petitions that are already made by the AI," she notes.

The ultimate benefit? "I see artificial intelligence as a great opportunity for us to have more capacity to process more cases in less time."

Italian Citizenship Law Firm's Vision for Growth and Expansion

Duiella's ambitions extend well beyond her current footprint. She is eyeing the West Coast, where the firm currently lacks a presence, and exploring new practice areas that naturally complement citizenship work.

"The immigration sector is very broad," she explains. "It doesn't really encompass just Italian citizenship. You have visas. We have other kinds of assistance that we are developing."

Real estate law has emerged as a particularly promising adjacent field. "Many people are willing to move to Italy or Europe, they want to buy real estate, they want to actually move to Italy. So this is an area which I would like to explore more."

Brexit has also created unexpected opportunities. With UK residents no longer automatically holding European Union citizenship, Duiella sees potential in helping British residents with Italian ancestry reclaim their connection to Europe. "Italian citizenship could have an important role in terms of people residing in England but who are not anymore European citizens because of Brexit."

Sabrina Duiella as a Thought Leader in Italian Citizenship Law

Beyond client work, Duiella has established herself as an educator and thought leader in the field. She regularly delivers seminars and conferences across the United States on Italian citizenship acquisition.

In October 2023, St. John's University and the Columbian Lawyer Association of Queens County invited her to present on overcoming common hurdles in the citizenship process. In 2025, she returned to New York twice, presenting to the Columbian Lawyer Associations of both Manhattan and Brooklyn. Her November presentation to Chicago's Justinian Society of Lawyers addressed the constitutional implications of recent Italian reforms.

"Those are seminars that I usually teach in order to make more people knowledgeable of the process," she says, "and in order to promote my activity as a lawyer specializing in this sector."

A presentation for the New York Supreme Court remains on the calendar, postponed due to scheduling conflicts but expected to proceed.

Building a Law Firm from the Ground Up: Lessons from Sabrina Duiella

Duiella's trajectory offers a compelling case study in legal entrepreneurship. She leveraged her elite law firm training, international experience, and unique dual-qualification status to identify an underserved niche. She built strategic partnerships to extend her geographic reach without overextending her resources. And she has embraced technology while maintaining the human connections that clients navigating complex bureaucratic processes desperately need.

From four or five cases to 250 annually. From solo practitioner to multi-office operation. From big law associate to founder.

"I really wanted to open my own law firm and to develop my own practice in the immigration sector," Duiella reflects.

Two years in, she has done exactly that.

Sabrina Duiella is the founder of Italian Citizenship Law Firm (ICLF), with offices in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Rome. She is admitted to the New York State and the Italian Bar and practices Italian and U.S. immigration law.